Friday, February 24, 2017

Yesterday saw the publication of my most recent paper. This one is a first for me in several ways. It is my first description of a new species based on specimens from the museum collection which I now oversee, and also, the first pinniped I get to properly describe.

The new paper came out in the open access journal PeerJ, that means you can download the whole article for free here!! In it I describe a new species of basal otariid (this is the group of pinnipeds that include fur seals and sea lions). The specimen comes from a very productive locality near the Upper Oso Reservoir in Orange County, California (see map below). Staff and colleagues from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles (NHMLA) collected at this site in the 1970s (you can see part of the site in this video, starting around minute 4:46). However, not much has been published so far.

FIGURE 1. Location of the study site (Upper Oso Dam) in Southern California.

At the locality, which is called Upper Oso Dam, there are at least three different terrestrial to marine units exposed, these being, from oldest to youngest: the Vaqueros/Sespe, Topanga, and Monterey formations. Most of the marine mammals collected by the NHMLA crew come from the middle one, the Topanga Formation. This formation was deposited in shallow marine environments and has been dated to between 16.5-14.5 million years ago. The fauna of this formation is remarkable for its similarity to that of the Sharktooth Hill (STH) Bonebed in Bakersfield, CA, which is not entirely surprising, given the overlap in age. However, there are some notable differences between the faunas, including the absence of otariids in STH. In the Topanga Formation there are at least two early otariids, both belonging to the same genus, Eotaria crypta described a couple of years ago by Boessenecker & Churchill (2015), and Eotaria citrica, described in my new paper.

FIGURE 2. On the left, the holotype and only known mandible of Eotaria citrica, in lateral, medial and occlusal views. On the right, a reconstruction of what this species may have looked like.

Fortunately, both species of Eotaria are known from mandibles, which made comparison between them more easily. Even better was finding a second mandible from another Topanga locality that matched the description of Eotaria crypta. This second one is a bit more complete than the holotype, which provided helpful information on its morphology. I included the new species in a phylogenetic analysis to find out more about the relationships between otariids. The results (see below) showed that both species of Eotaria are the "oldest, most primitive" otariids, and continues to reinforce the hypothesis that this group originated in the North Pacific Region. I also used this opportunity to more properly define the clades that form this group, similar to what my colleagues and I have been doing with cetaceans (e.g. Pyenson et al., 2015; Velez-Juarbe et al., 2015; Boersma & Pyenson, 2016). So I proceeded to redefined Otariidae as the group composed by living members (this is also referred to as the crown group), and I also coined a new clade name, Pan-Otariidae, which is the group that includes species outside the crown, such as Eotaria, plus Otariidae.

The second part of the paper, is an overview of the pinniped faunas of Southern California over the last 25 million years. This part was mainly the result of curiosity about the marine mammals of California, and also going over the collections over and over again. As I learned more both from the literature, looking at specimens and talking to colleagues, I thought this might be a story worth telling in more detail than had been done previously. The results, which are summarized in Figure 7 of the paper and the one below, are quite interesting. For starters, pinnipeds started out small, then got larger over time, which is something previous authors have noticed (e.g. Churchill et al., 2015) and that we see in other groups of marine organisms as well (Vermeij, 2012; Pyenson & Vermeij, 2016).

FIGURE 4. Overview of the pinniped faunas of Southern California over the last 25 million years. Each outline represents a distinct species. The present fauna is represented, left to right by: harbor seal (Phoca vitulina), northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus), California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), and northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) (modified from Velez-Juarbe, 2017:fig. 7).

Beginning at around 16 million years ago, these faunas were composed by otariids, odobenids (walruses) and members of an extinct group called Allodesmus. Otariids represented the smallest bodied pinnipeds, while odobenids occupied mid-size ranges and Allodesmus were the largest bodied pinnipeds in those faunas. But that changed about 12-10 million years ago, when Allodesmus seems to have become extinct, at least in Southern California and walruses took over. It is then that odobenids diversified, with species occupying the mid to large body size ranges in the faunas. But things changed again, in relative recent times (less than 1.5 million years ago), when walruses became locally extinct and we see the appearance of true seals, like the harbor seals and northern elephant seal. These changes in the faunas, when a species is replaced by another, is what we refer to as faunal turnovers, and are usually tied, or can be correlated with local or global tectono-climatic events.

Nevertheless, there is still much more to be done with respect to the pinnipeds of Southern California, specially when it comes to their diversity as there seems to be more undescribed species in collections. The upcoming years will see more projects by colleagues (and myself too) where we'll continue to unravel the evolutionary history of pinnipeds and other marine tetrapods in the North Pacific region. So stay tuned!!!

References

Boersma, A. T., and N. D. Pyenson. 2016. Arktocara yakataga, a new fossil odontocete (Mammalia, Cetacea) from the Oligocene of Alaska and the antiquity of Platanistoidea. PeerJ 4:e2321; DOI 10.7717/peerj.2321

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number (NSF Grant 1249920).Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Velez-Juarbe, J., A.R. Wood, C. De Gracia, and A.J.W. Hendy. 2015. Evolutionary patterns among living and fossil kogiid sperm whales: evidence from the Neogene of Central America. PLoS ONE 10(4):e0123909

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number (NSF Grant 1249920).Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Friday, March 13, 2015

It was late January, when, alongside some of my colleagues from Vertebrate Paleontology, we headed north towards California's Central Valley, leaving behind the heavy traffic and skyscrapers of LA. More specifically, we were heading to Bakersfield to spend part of the weekend excavating at the world-renowned paleontological site of Sharktooth Hill.

Left: shark teeth are abundant in this area, hence the name. Right: the Sharktooth Hill National Natural Landmark, some of the earlier localities are around this hill, like the pits on the middle of the hillside towards the right. These photos were taken in the spring of 2014.

The hills northeast of Bakersfield where Sharktooth Hill is located; this photo was taken earlier this year (my personal favorite time to go there).

A brief introduction to STH
Ancient marine deposits known as the Round Mountain Silt are exposed throughout the hills northeast of Bakersfield. Within this deposit there is a particularly dense accumulation of bones of (mainly) marine organisms, known as the Sharktooth Hill (STH) Bonebed. Since the early 1900's, many fossils have been discovered and described from this site, including cetaceans, birds, pinnipeds, and turtles (e.g. Kellogg, 1931; Howard, 1966; Mitchell, 1966; Barnes, 1988; Lynch and Parham, 2003). The bonebed is regarded as one of the most densest accumulation of marine organisms, and is one of the densest accumulation of fossil whales, rivaled only by Cerro Ballena in Chile (Pyenson et al., 2009; Pyenson et al., 2014)!

The Sharktooth Hill Bonebed, here we can see some large ribs of a mysticete being cleaned and you can get an idea of the high density of bones.

This accumulation was deposited in the seafloor between 15.9-15.2 million years ago, and for many years after its discovery, there were a variety of hypotheses as to what caused such a high concentration of bones. It wasn't until 2009, when Nick Pyenson and his colleagues published the results of a very thorough study detailing how it came to be. The major finding was that the bonebed formed during a period of low sediment deposition that lasted about 700 thousand years. Because of the slow sedimentation, the bones of the dead organisms were not buried soon after death and were easily scavenged and scatters throughout the ocean floor, resulting in a mélange of bones. The paper also highlights that the assemblage may not represent a single snapshot ancient ocean life in California, but that researchers have to keep in mind that these organisms died over a period of several hundred thousand years. This makes the STH bonebed different from other dense marine tetrapod assemblages such as Cerro Ballena where the bonebeds were formed over much shorter spans and can be considered as more precise snapshots in time.

The ongoing NHM dig
The Natural History Museum of LA has had a long history of digging at STH, going back more than 50 years, and we probably hold the largest collection of material from that site. Recently, after a long hiatus, we've had the opportunity to start an excavation at a new site in the area*. At this new site the bonebed is close to the surface, which reduces the amount of time we spend removing overburden.

Setting up our quarry. Vanessa (middle) and Sam (far right) prepare the grid that marks our site. Lisa (far left) picks to tools of the trade she'll be using this day.

For now, a lot of what we do during our digs is carefully removing overburden and exposing the bonebed square meter by square meter. It may sound a bit slow, but we do it this way as part of our plan is to eventually be able to reconstruct the bonebed digitally and have a really good record of how the different bones at our excavation were related to each other before removal. So as you may guess, once a square meter(s) of the bonebed are exposed, we make sure we take a lot of photos before removing the fossils from the ground. The work is methodical and can be tedious at some times (i.e. when you're not finding bones) but in the end it is very rewarding.

Vanessa and Sam work on the northeast corner of our quarry. To the left are a bunch of mysticete ribs, and a few vertebrae and skull fragment all jumbled up.

What's next?
Even after so many years of work at the STH Bonebed, there are still mysteries to solve, new species to be described and/or redescribed based on new finding. So, as we continue our dig at STH, stay tuned for more updates as well as upcoming publication on fossils from this amazing and unique deposit!

*Our dig is possible thanks to the generosity of the landowners who are really supportive of our work out there, and also very enthusiastic, often participating in the dig as well; and to people who have donated money to cover for expenses.

Kellogg, R. 1931. Pelagic mammals from the temblor Formation of the Kern River region, California. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 19:217-397.

Lynch, S. C., and J. F. Parham. 2003. The first report of hard-shelled sea turtles (Cheloniidae sensu lato) from the Miocene of California, including a new species (Euclastes hutchisoni) with unusually plesiomorphic characters. PaleoBios 23:21-35.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number (NSF Grant 1249920).Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Today sees the publication of the most recent addition to the series on fossil sirenians from the Western Atlantic and Caribbean (WAC) region (Velez-Juarbe and Domning, 2015). In our new paper we describe another new taxon from Puerto Rico (in July 2014 we describedPriscosiren atlantica Velez-Juarbe and Domning, 2014). The material we describe in this new paper includes cranial and postcranial material from several individuals (Figures 1-5) and collected from several adjacent localities of the late Oligocene Lares Limestone in northwestern Puerto Rico*. We dubbed this new taxon Callistosiren boriquensis which translates into "Boriquen's most beautiful sirenian". Boriquén is the aboriginal name for the island of Puerto Rico, and "most beautiful" is in reference to the superb preservation of the type material (Figure 4).*I've actually written and shown images of this fossil previously on this blog (here, here, here and here).

Figure 1. Callistosiren boriquensis is known from multiple elements of about five individuals (each color represents elements known from one or more specimens; white = unknown). Outline of skeleton modified from Cope (1890).
(Click on the image to see larger version.)

The material we described in our paper includes two skulls, which actually account for the first and second sirenian skulls I found and collected, one in 2003, the other in 2005! The rest of the material we described which consists of ribs and vertebrae, was collected during an NSF-funded trip in 2009 with co-author Daryl Domning and with the help of my undergraduate advisor Hernán Santos and my colleagues Alvin Bonilla and Diana Ortega.

Figure 2. Left, me at the type locality during the first day (April 9, 2005) digging around the holotype skull (USNM 540765) (photo by MPT); top right, the skull (USNM 540765) during the second day (April 10, 2005) and ready to be jacketed; bottom right, early stages of preparation of the holotype skull (September 7, 2005).

Figure 3. Top, some of the postcranial material referred to Callistosiren boriquensis prior to being collected, including the third lumbar (L3), sacral (S1) caudal (Ca1-4) vertebrae, and two chevrons (Ch). Below, my co-author Daryl Domning collecting other postcranial elements at type locality. Collected in June 2009.

What is Callistosiren?Callistosiren is a dugongine, which is the name given to the group of seacows that are more closely related to the dugong (Dugong dugon) of the Indopacific region than to Steller's seacow (Hydrodamalis gigas) and manatees. In fact, dugongines seemed to have originated and diversified in the Western Atlantic and Caribbean region and the group was present there until the mid to late Pliocene (Domning, 2001). Although one of the oldest dugongines, Callistosiren has morphological features that groups it amongst more derived members of the group. One of these features is that the enlarged tusks (I1 in Figure 4) of Callistosiren had enamel is confined to the medial (inner) surface, while the outside consist only of dentine. The result of this is that the lower edge of the tusks would wear off unevenly, forming a self-sharpening edge. This is something we also see in other dugongines such as some Dioplotherium and would presumably have been advantageous when cutting and uprooting seagrasses.

Figure 4. Dorsal, ventral and right lateral views of skull of Callistosiren boriquensis (modified from Velez-Juarbe and Domning, 2015:figs.1-3).

A lightweight among sirenians
When I first encountered the ribs and vertebrae of Callistosiren I was surprised by how skinny they were relative to those of other similarly sized sirenians such as Priscosiren (Figure 5). You see, sirenian bones are usually pachyosteosclerotic which means that they are dense and thickened (Domning and Buffénil, 1991). This is an adaptation that evolved very early in the evolutionary history of the group, with pachyostosis (thickened) and lightly osteosclerotic (dense) bones already present in one of the oldest sirenians, the middle Eocene Pezosiren portelli, and apparently becoming fully pachyosteosclerotic by the late Eocene (Buffrénil et al., 2010). This adaptation helps sirenians achieve neutral buoyancy and move in the water column with minimal effort, functioning in a similar fashion as a divers weight belt. There are few exceptions where sirenian bones deviate from this condition. One of these are the protosirenids, an extinct group of early sirenians, Callistosiren and extant dugong. One possible explanation for the lack of pachyostosis in dugong is that this species occasionally dives to depths greater than 10 meters, which is around when lungs begin to collapse, thus reducing buoyancy (Domning and Buffrénil, 1991). This may have been the case in Callistosiren, whose vertebrae and ribs are osteosclerotic, but not pachyostotic. Interestingly, Domning (2001) predicted the discovery of Caribbean sirenians with reduced ballast as another strategy for niche partitioning in sirenian multispecies communities and has now become true with the discovery of Callistosiren.

About Me

With a bachelors degree in Geology from University of Puerto Rico and a PhD in Anatomy from Howard U., I am currently Assistant Curator of Marine Mammals (living and extinct) at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The main subjects of this blog are Marine Tetrapods of the Neotropics and Eastern Pacific regions.
The text in these posts reflect my own opinion and not those of the granting agency or institutions to which I’m affiliated.
If you wish to contact me write to: jorgefossilhunter@yahoo.com